Four-access, 80 mm aperture all phase-controlled liquid crystal laser antenna

High speed, wide range, and high precise beam steering technology are fundamental to free-space optical communication (FSO). Liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA) is capable of achieving non-mechanical beam steering. This paper demonstrates a parallel, four-communication access beam deflection antenna based on LC-OPA, providing a large aperture, wide steering range, and high pointing precision. This antenna is composed of a coarse tracking subsystem using cascaded liquid crystal polarized grating (LCPG) and a fine tracking subsystem based on LC-OPA. The optical aperture is 80 mm x 80 mm, arranged in 2 x 2 subapertures, each serving a single wavelength beam. Besides, a cascaded control platform based on field programmable gate array is proposed to realize low-latency response. This optical antenna achieves a steering resolution of 20 mu rad and covers a range of +/- 12 deg in two dimensions, laying the foundation for simultaneous access of multiple terminals in FSO communication network. (C) 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

Automated summary

This paper presents a high-speed and high-precision beam steering technology using liquid crystal optical phased array (LC-OPA). The proposed parallel, four-communication access beam deflection antenna based on LC-OPA offers a wide steering range and precise pointing capability. With the use of cascaded liquid crystal polarized grating (LCPG) and a fine tracking subsystem, this antenna achieves a steering resolution of 20 mu rad and covers a range of +/- 12 deg in two dimensions, providing the foundation for simultaneous access of multiple terminals in FSO communication network.